Just a caution
to all my sisters here
watch out
for the most pious of men
for they
all seemingly practical
wish most dearly
to solely clutch your waist  
between
their nights alone

they wish to see
less of your soul and spirit
and more
of your body and figure
beware of these men.
Their gaze holds fury and lust
fury. for
when you are not theirs
you may bed with another
and hold
your own claim upon yourself
as you should.

Make sure
you are not the last to know
as the wooden horse
crashes through your gates
and
within the hours of the night
lays siege upon you.

as the May
sun sets over our
reign.
We breathe and savor
the flowers of the lily, wishing
they rise again, after the
late solstice of gloom comes and goes:

Sweet Lily, we shall meet again.
after the floods and the thaw, I shall be reborn.
but for now, my season has passed,
and the arid droughts of summer
must test the roots I have grown
in so short and beautiful a time

the nights are longer now,
even though the clock says they’re the same.
the air feels heavier,
like it knows I’m here
alone.

there’s a hole where her laugh used to be,
where her smell lingered on my shirt,
and where her voice
turned this place
into something that felt
alive.

I reach for her in the dark,
not to find her—
I know she’s not there—
but to remind myself
I ever held her at all.

I ache for the curve of your lips,
the secret valleys where your whispers rest,
the gentle storm of your breath
against the quiet hunger of my own.

In the trembling air, I find
the ghost of your fingers weaving through mine,
their warmth a fragile truth
that lingers in the hollows of my palm.

Your body, once a map I learned by heart,
now drifts like a dream behind a veil.
I long to cross the distance,
to find your skin beneath the moonlight,
to trace the constellations of us
once more into the quiet rhythms of night.

Each moment apart is a wound,
an echo of love that fills my chest
until it spills into the open,
a river that cries your name
with every pulse of the tide.

Oh, let me fall into you again,
into the world we made
in stolen hours and hushed embraces.
Let my lips find yours
as if the universe depends on their meeting,
as if time itself stops to listen
to the story only we can tell.

the first moment
where every commitment
substitutes for treachery
and our caress involves
your cold steel
pressing
against my back.

you manage to
be pleased by
flattery and pleasure  
until the second moment,
we intimately raise a glass
to civility, both knowing

neither of us
deserves the other's embrace.
while our shield still protects
while our swords still stand
proud and bloodied from
previous battles

I do not fight with blades,
I sing to you
enveloping your mind with
stimulus  
of wishes and dreams,
of whimsy and fantasy
of promises and security
hoping that
your eyes may betray
the stillness that covers you

is just the love
that once belonged to you
that now
has nowhere else to go.

that flimsy mask you put on
to hide from me...
you wear it to protect you
from the dangerous dreams I
share, and the flattery
I utter.

A wise choice,
for my words are sweet,
and my arrow is true
and persistent

however
it does nothing,
to hide two almond eyes
which come
gleaming through.

I miss them now,
two burning
wildfires of passion
lighting up your soul.

I am lost in a madness  
when they focus on mine.

And when you leave,
I stare blankly into the distance,
searching for a remnant
of a similar passion within nature.

But nowhere it is to be.
No blaze burns so
vividly
and
beautifully,
and dances,
so lovingly for me.

And so I return
endlessly,
to the two globes
that have ignited
the first fire in my
chest
within an epoch.

Your eyes
they will endlessly betray you, darling.
they are the one piece of you
that I have managed to possess,
and I wish that until the end of time,
they will never lie to me
and endlessly announce the
quiet truths
which the rest of your body
cannot say.

I can see you
on the other side of the
bush
The humidity makes my eyes foggy and the
sticks and shrubs and flowers make it hard to
see
but I can see you
your shadow.
pulsating up and down
in and out

I can sense it
the curves along your body
Close my eyes
Run my fingers over the goosebumps on your
slender
You're sensational
You're a lioness
lost in the forest
Waiting for happily ever after to be called out

I can feel your tongue slip over mine but
             somehow
and I don't believe them -
they say you're a mirage.

It's become like this sweet
this
interesting flavor of color, chemicals, and glue

it's become like trying to spread jam over toast
but it just won't go
to the corners and it just doesn't mix
with anything you want it to

the words go everywhere
and many times go into
the wrong places

and
and
AND!

it's a ******* stutter  
thick and deep and red
and  
the berries are so too ripe
and the jam is oh so sweet
but its a slow
painful,
pour.
stutter

and stutter

maybe it just needs to sit a while
mix it up
pour it out
try again
try again
or maybe it's just time
to stop eating ******* toast

Slender and sunset spotted
I glean your legs and climb your
waist
Taking in every sound your skin makes
as my finger guides the words
off your lips
and into mine

There's two ways this could go

I could hit it
bullseye.
word for word;
the immortal poem.
and waste the rest of it
cooped up
in a small wood cabin with nothing but a few
bagels and weary eyes

Or I could meet a nice woman
Brown hair
Sunset eyes
Warm heart
and waste the rest of it
cooped up
in a small wood cabin with nothing but a few
bagels and weary eyes

I have fallen in love
with every stranger passing by
during these slow summer days

I imagine a life
in which you are mine
and I yours

I have pictured our home
sun gleaming onto
our children running outside

I have already had
those many conversations
with you on the bedside

We have grown old together,
in those brief moments
where we are strangers passing by

is cracked and beaten
by blistering heat and blistered feet
the Road
is long and heavy
ridges eroded by sweat and tear

the Road is the arizona sun
Parched and pale
Heat resonating over the evergoing stretches of black
ash and stone

the Road
has taken its toll on me
my tired eyes and burnt lips
utter prayer to thee
the Road
asks,
takes,
wants…
all

and gives only more Road
in return

the Road is twisted,
barren and broken,
eroded by the stream of flesh and bone
and the dust will kick up
and the winds will shatter the sand around you
and you’ll tuck down your skull

wondering
Why do I ride the Road?

Then and then only
In that flicker of time
between question and answer
the Road will ask.
it will whisper for your soul
do not give it.
do not cede.
give everything else
but not that.

If you do this,
Then only will you quench your thirst
and have the epiphany
To look back upon the years rode
and wander into wonder
of the many lessons learned.

As the sand and the stars
That we are born from
Seep away from our skins,
And stain the sheets we sleep within,

staining them blue, and gold, and silver,
And all of the colours
of the galaxies
That we’ve seen

We embrace to call them back.
And you wrap your shine over mine as
The infinite flows back into
Us coalescing into one finite universe.

Larger, more beautiful,
More full of life and love and vigor
Than any we have ever seen before.  
That my love, is for you and you alone.

As the sky darkens
I open my arms
to you
ushering you to
come after.
but ALAS!
you, are no longer here.

The only thing
that comes
to embrace me
is this frigid,
teasing breeze.

this breeze,
It shakes me to the bone
rips away my hope and desires
and tries to make me kneel
in agony and
wail in
pain.

it brings with it
sickness ,
darkness,
madness,
emptiness,
endless,
thunder and rain

but most importantly
it bears the memory
of your anger
logic
remorse
and planned revenge

and the rain...
well, darling,
it is frigid too.

but at least
I remember your
tears.
Your innocent,
holy,
and once warm
tears.

Darling, I try not to let a single drop
ever reach the ground.
I am outside
hands cupped.

But Darling,
your pain is so vast.
and Oh!
this small rainfall
has turned into flood
overwhelming
too vast for the well in my hands.

I let it pour,
hands outstretched
your tears mixing with my own
and I connect
with you once more
through this perverse ritual

we burned like cheap whiskey,
sharp, bitter,
gone too fast,
leaving me with the kind of hangover
you don’t walk off.
you were my way out—
or at least a hope,
a muse, a laugh,
something to hold on to
in this stupid, circular life.

but I was too much,
and not enough.
all my broken pieces,
all your quiet exits.
you looked at me like I was the problem
you couldn’t solve,
and I looked at you like
you could save me.

love doesn’t save anyone.
it guts you.
it leaves you bleeding out
on a ***** floor,
picking through the mess
for anything worth keeping.
I haven’t found it yet.

Listening to Springsteen
below this apple tree
below this park light
below this blanket of moths
below the central bank
below this crooked city
below this broken order
below this starless sky
below this empty universe

I sit and wait,
for our midnight date.

And another sad song after the last
I've heard it before
A classic earworm.  
sure to make you never forget
old loves